Originally posted by Lithuanian
 I'm not sure why Velea closed it. In my times - when I was active in the forum - I did not notice such habit.

It's apparently common now.

I'd only recently returned to the game so had no personal experience with it, but just a week earlier guildies had been talking in guild chat about the forum nazis when a new member told us about their thread having been deleted. And someone was complaining about it in one of the chat channels the other day.

Originally posted by Ichmen
no thread should be deleted instantly without due cause. its just pisspoor for csr's to go around locking and deleting valid threads/questions related to game mechanics. 

Yeah it's definitely pisspoor, but I also think it's more than that.

They have rules for forum behaviour which implicitly cover moderator behaviour. At the very least this moderator is breaking those rules. Frequently.

Trying to chastise players for actions which don't break the rules and are not malicious or destructive - i.e. asking game related questions on behalf of a friend - is bullying.

Most organisations have policies covering this and and a mechanism for customers to complain - not staff telling you the only person you can complain to about them, is them.

It's hilarious that you or anyone else would think there's anything wrong with asking game-related question on behalf of another player.

There's just no limit on human insanity is there?

Meanwhile even though the developers are evil, the community is generally very nice and also not terribly thrilled about the way their devs carry on. Another supportive PM came in.

I feel like I need to apologize for your less-than-favorable experiences with our support staff in the last few days.

While I have no control over what they do or the decisions they make, it still embarrasses and frustrates me to see players treated in the flippant manner that you were in response to your query about plots.

If you're already feeling estranged, I understand completely and don't blame you.

I just want to reach out and let you know that those of us behind the scenes do not all share the same attitude as the support staff you encountered.

Good news for those currently subbed. I'm glad they changed their minds on this.

Personally the reason I passed on playing Ryzom when I first learned about it was their warning that unsubbing from the game for more than three months would see your character wiped. I raised an eyebrow at the absurdity of that and kept looking for something else to play.

Years later I was speaking to someone who played Ryzom and they knew of that warning and agreed it was terrible but said no character wipes had every actually been done. So I gave the game a try and fell in love with it.

I'm not currently subbed to Ryzom - my guild moved away to play other games - but just read the email saying if you're not subbed by the 29th kiss goodbye to your characters and all the hard work you put into them.

I briefly considered resubbing to save my character and the immense amount of time and effort invested in him - I resub on occasion to see how things are - but decided to pucker up instead.

I think it's immensely rotten to do a player wipe and just the fact that it's happening is a reason for me to leave Ryzom behind me forever.

Ryzom - I enjoyed the hell out of you. Even with your dated graphics I think your artwork is still amongst the best in the market. Your mob AI is delightful and makes the world feel so alive. I love your crafting and your magic effects and your weapons. But sadly your owners are completely bonkers I ain't having any of that.

Farewell :)

To anyone considering playing this game, please know that it's run by a bunch of vindictive tyrants.

I posted a question in the question and answer forum.

http://community.istaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26951

A friend (no seriously) currently has a choice between two guild master plots but we're short a bit of vital information.

Someone has told us that the GH that comes with the master plot can't be deconned. I've been hunting around looking for info but can't find anything solid other than a few old forum posts saying you need to build a GH on the master plot before others can build anything on the sub-plots.

It's of particular interest because the GH on one of the plots is not ideally positioned and if it can't be moved it makes that plot considerably less attractive and her decision a bit easier.

Does anyone know for sure how this works?

A few other forum members answered it that they couldn't be destroyed.

While most threads in this forum are never locked, the moderator decided to lock this thread. No explanation has been provided.

But the issue wasn't resolved so I posted another question just asking if my friend could submit a ticket to have the guildhouse repositioned.

It was instantly deleted. The reason provided was that the question had been answered. But of course it hadn't.

Other forum members read the post before it was deleted and one PM'ed me straight away to say how unfair they thought it was.

Don't you love Velea just closing threads all the time. And even to completely delete a thread. I find it happening more and more often from her. If they don't want to discuss something they just delete it and go on. So, sorry that your thread and posts were not even really considered by her. It happens so often with most of the subjects and post by me also.

I asked if she could name her supervisor so I could lodge a complaint. She advised she didn't have one. They're all equals apparently. So I PM'ed them and put my apparently terrible question to them.

What they decided was appropriate was to chastise me for the unspeakable sin of asking game-related questions on behalf of a friend.

Since Velea won't allow me to ask this question in the forums I have to resort to a PM.

There's a guild master plot with a GH placed diagonally across the middle of it. A friend of mine is very keen on the location and plot but the placement of the GH is kind of ridiculous and makes a lot of the space unusable.

If she bought the plot could she petition to have it shifted?

____

If the player has purchased the plot then that player should submit a ticket. Other players should not submit tickets for that player, nor should they be sending PMs or posting on the forums about it since it is a specific issue relating to a specific player and plot.

In fact I had already purchased this plot and another for my friend to choose between so they were both currently mine. She's very busy with university for the next few months so I was following up on this for her, but apparently that's a crime on those forums.

Consider yourselves warned :)

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by green13

The thought of playing an MMO where some players are spending $50+ a month in the item mall is not something that appeals to me.

 

Actually it is VERY appealing to me. That means that they are subsidizing my gaming habits. I am more than happy to oblige.

And I think that's a perfectly valid point of view.

I - and others who are happy to pay a monthly subscription - just don't share it.

I haven't gotten around to trying it yet - wanted to wait until they'd fixed things up a bit.

But if they went free-to-play now, I suppose I'd be thankful I hadn't wasted time downloading it.

Originally posted by kaiser3282

 OMG how dare they (MMORPG.COM) try to make money as a business by advertising for the companies who are willing to pay for it....

Its MMORPG.COM, not P2PMMORPGONLY.COM, get the fk over it.

And like it or not, most anti-F2P people are stuck in the past and judge F2P games based on very limited or outdated information on what F2P games USED to be like, not what many of them currently are.

Get your facts straight.

I've no objection at all to mmorpg.com running advertising.

I do, however, object when they aggressively promote free-to-play games and/or microtransactions in their articles. Some of their articles are fine, but others really cross a line. Eg.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/4294/Ive-A-Feeling-Were-Not-In-Kansas-Any-More.html

Then, let's ask ourselves what this decision likely indicates about the western free to play market. Which of these scenarios seems to make more sense?

(a) The F2P market is small and unimportant, just like its detractors make it out to be.

(b) The F2P market is considerably larger and more important than they think it is.

People who don't like microtransactions/free-to-play games etc. couldn't care less that there are free-to-play games on the market. They just don't want to play them.

This is what is known as a straw argument. You falsely ascribe a particular argument or view to people you disagree with, and then argue with that fictitious view. It's a lot easier than actually dealing with reality.

So I say shame on mmorpg.com for publishing rubbish like this.

Originally posted by acidgod

Out of MMOs now, do not see anything good on the horizon.  Married, have a house, job.  No kids yet, but damn, is it me, or the MMO industry?  Maybe I am getting too old, or maybe someday there will be a badass MMO once again that will grab my attention.  Any thoughts, or am I losing it?

Acid - it's not your age or your growing out of MMOs.

It's just a string of craptastic releases. Since WOW the only two MMOs I've played that were actually ready for launch when they launched were LOTRO and Aion. But those were essentially just another paid of EQ-clones.

There are some goodies in the making though.

Check out games like Earthrise, Tera Online and Rift. They're all doing new and interesting things. If they make good on their promises (always a big if sadly) then they might be attention-grabbing for you.

Originally posted by zeowyrm

Interesting article, but it predates the DDO conversion to their current Hybrid plan, which is the basis for the LOTRO Hybrid Payment Option plan, so its not as timely as one might think.

As I said in my OP, most of the statistics released by "free" to play games are essentially meaningless, and DDO is no exception.

They tell us things like they experienced a 500% increase in revenue - and this is supposed to make us believe that they're now wildly successful, but....

Given how poorly they were doing before the change - well five times almost nothing is still almost nothing.

Maybe we'll get some hard numbers from DDO and LOTRO now that Warner Bros own them, but until they choose to release those details or until we see them in the Warner Bros financial reports, there's no reason to set them apart from other "free" to play games.

Always topical and moreso right now...

So-called "free" to play games tend to be shy about telling us about their finances. The only statistics we generally hear are completely meaningless ones like the number of registered users.

But there was an interesting article last year which revealed the real deal with "free" to play MMOs.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4046/what_are_the_rewards_of_.php

Some highlights:

• 90% of players in free-to-play MMOs will never pay anything.
• Per user (including non-payers), on average they pull in on average $1 - $2 per month.
• Per paying user (i.e. that 10% minority) they will pull in on average $10 - $50 per month.

Originally posted by Xianthos

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Fuck the pigs, oinkers, whatever the hell they're called. There should be more than enough players to give some grief back to a chickenshit guild.

The point is "enough players" never group up to grief them. They just think as long it doesnt affect me i dont care.

An interesting parody of real life, perhaps?

There are so many injustices in the world that should have us all rioting in the streets with pitchforks, torches and (my personal favourite) heads-on-pikes, but they can generally be safely perpetrated because everyone tucks their head down and just carries on with their own business.

Originally posted by nihce

another finatic's fanatic posts. full of unverified numbers but I am so used to this I won't even bother...

If that was in response to my post...

You should be aware that as a public company, Funcom publish details about the numbers of subscribers in their games in financial reports.

The figures reported on mmodata.net are taken from those reports.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/150k-1m.png

As I said, Turbine have never released those figures so the figures in this graph are an estimate. But even reports from supposed insiders at Turbine only put their number of subscribers about 50k-80k below this number.

So as of 6 months ago, LOTRO was definitely way ahead of AoC.

I should also make it clear that I don't play either. LOTRO didn't impress me and I haven't gotten around to trying AoC yet. I'm completely neutral in this.

Originally posted by Dilweed

It launched together with wow and eq2 (ryzom actually launched a month earlier or something, not 100% finished at release but it had to release to make a change against the 2 big once)

At least with the benefit of retrospect, I'd say that was a mistake.

My guild tried EQ2 when it launched, but it was so buggy. And then WOW launched free of bugs. EQ2's bugginess just made WOW look even better by comparison. Ditching EQ2 was an easy decision.

If Ryzom did the same....

Originally posted by Cpt_Picard

I just went to lotro.com and almost puked.... Some one please tell me this is a joke. My weekend has just been ruined.

I think it's.... sad that Turbine managed to screw up MMOs based on arguably the two biggest and move beloved fantasy IPs in the western world but I wouldn't vomit over it.

Going free-to-play is almost certainly better than shutting down entirely.

Originally posted by negentropy

You're absolutely right. The issue people seem to be getting hung up on, however, if the difference between "legal" and "reasonable".

......

Your purchase was bad timing or your part and it's your tough luck.

But that's the crux of this issue. It wasn't "bad timing" on the OP's part. Codemasters ran a sale on a product they knew was going to drastically change in the near future, and if the OP had had that information he would not have made the purchase.

And the timing of the sale seems to suggest that Codemasters knew this would be the case.

So it may very well be illegal.

Then, let's ask ourselves what this decision likely indicates about the western free to play market. Which of these scenarios seems to make more sense?

(a) The F2P market is small and unimportant, just like its detractors make it out to be.

(b) The F2P market is considerably larger and more important than they think it is.

Huh?

There are many people who prefer subscription MMOs and don't like microtransactions. Lots really, and the subscription MMO market is very alive and kicking.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23003

Those players rightly express that they don't like item malls.

But this notion that f2p detractors claim that the f2p market is "small and unimportant" - I think you've pulled that out of your..... dark and stinky place.

No-one in their right mind could claim that there's no market for f2p MMOs. This site is literally covered top-to-bottom in f2p MMO ads. They're pretty hard to miss. But it's also perfectly fair to say "I don't like item malls and I particularly don't want to see them in subscription MMOs".

For a while last year mmorpg.com was aggressively pushing the idea that everyone should love item malls. It was absurd. It still seems like that bias is in play.

My own take on LOTRO going to free to play.... In a subscription MMO market showing enormous growth even during the GFC, Turbine couldn't make profitable games using arguably the two biggest fantasy IPs on the planet.

I think that says a lot more about Turbine than it does the MMO market.

Originally posted by stux

THIS GAME TAKES SOME ACTUAL SKILL TO PLAY.

ROFL

The penultimate fanboi defence.

"You don't like this game only because you suck".

Hilarious!

I don't know what it's like now, but 12 months ago the game suffered from a huge number of unforgivable flaws.

I loved the FPS combat. I loved that mobs didn't just stand still and take it like xp/gold/equipment pinatas. And I've had trouble enjoying other MMOs now because they're all a bit bland in comparison.

But so many flaws....

The grind factor was impossible. So bloodwalls were everywhere and afk-botting was rampant and no-one tried to hide it. I once saw players doing it by the vault in the elven capital! They've made changes to address this.

The supposedly open skill system - not really so open. You couldn't eg. really choose just to focus on magic. The game mechanics favour everyone developing every skill. I know some like that, but it's a turn off for some (eg. me). Still lthe same.

And the worst - the horrible alignment system which meant you were far more likely to be griefed by members of your own faction than enemy ones. I've been looking in from time to time and asking the few guildies who stuck with DF and as far as I know they've done nothing to fix this.

If the combat mechanics live up to their claims, botting should be more difficult in an FPS game with smart mob AI.

But it's not all that often that an MMO lives up to its hype :(

Originally posted by Nirwyl

I never understood why they didn't release Darkfall servers with non-PvP or restricted PvP rulesets, maybe this is something like that. I'd love to play Darkfall on a PvE server with limited looting. I guess I am too carebear for FFA PvP and full loot.

I was always dumbfounded by that choice too.

I didn't mind the free for all looting personally. It was the totally screwed up alignment system that made me hit the cancel button.

But the PVE side of the game is quite good and offering multiple server types (eg. without looting) wouldn't hurt the game at all, but it would broaden the game's appeal.

It made me wonder if they weren't a bit mentally deficient....

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by Shadewalker

Originally posted by Alberel

Whether or not you like it or not, or regardless of whether any of you think it is value for money, he is receiving something different to what he paid for.

No, he bought the right to play the game free of additional charge for as long as it is in existence, subject only to certain additional charges such as paid-for expansions, and that right is precisely what he will continue to have after the Autumn, up until which he will continue exactly as at present in any event, and after which he may well find that he doesn't actually need to pay extra for those expansions after all.

No, Alberel is right.

It isn't fraud, because there was no actual lie.

But in contract law, witholding pertinent information can constitute misrepresentation.

The facts.

1) Free-to-play and subscription games are very different. Item shops are positively loathed by a lot of players and many players who would happily pay a monthly or lifetime sub wouldn't touch a free-to-play game with a ten-foot-pole.

2) Turbine ran a special offer, selling the lifetime subs at reduced cost just prior to switching to a free-to-play model. That's EXTREMELY suspicious. It's as if they knew that was the lifetime subscription was going to be FAR less appealing after the switch.

I don't know if there's enough there to win a case because laws vary from place to place. But the OP is right to be angry and to seek legal advice.

But they didn't switch to a free to play mode, they added a "free to play" (or "a la carte) model.

Alberel is not right. The op will get exactly what he paid for as far as service.

The only footing that he or anyone who wants to jump into the same boat have is if they:

a, clearly despise any idea of any sort of cash shop, regardless of whether or not it really has any actual effect on the game

b, they never want to support a company that can implement or has games that implement this type of system.

 

Because as it stands now I have not seen any argument that is convincing except for for the above.

It doesn't constitute fraud because nothing was witheld by Turbine that changes the actual purchased service and makes it anything other than what it is.

In addtion, nothing added with this Turbine Cash shop invalidates or makes their purchased service any lesser and it is still a better value.

So provided that a player has intention to play the game for years coming (which is the whole idea fo the life time sub) people still get the better value with the life time sub.

All this essentially comes down to is that people are angry at Turbine because they added a type of cash shop and regardless that it doesn't really give anyone a significant leg up in the game, they don't like the idea and want nothing to do with the company.

It doesn't matter to me that people like something or hate something but for my tastes I would rather call a spade a spade so the true issue can be discussed.

No, Alberel is right.

If you order a basket of apples and instead receive a basket of bananas of the "same value", that's not necessarily any good to you if what you wanted was apples. You might not like bananas. You might be allergic to them. You might just really feel like some apples.

That is what has happened here. LOTRO has advertised "cheap apples", KNOWING THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY and then delivered him bananas instead.

i.e. bait and switch.